“We are disappointed with the Supreme Court’s decision. However, we believe the problems cited by the Court can and should be fixed.

“It is inappropriate to try terrorists in civilian courts. It threatens our national security and places the safety of jurors in danger. For those reasons and others, we believe terrorists should be tried before military commissions.

“In his opinion, Justice Breyer set forth the path to a solution of this problem. He wrote, ‘Nothing prevents the president from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary.’

“We intend to pursue legislation in the Senate granting the Executive Branch the authority to ensure that terrorists can be tried by competent military commissions. Working together, Congress and the administration can draft a fair, suitable, and constitutionally permissible tribunal statute.”

So this all may just be a matter of formalities. And perhaps all along was a strategy of the administration. They’ve been able to keep these terrorists locked up this long, now it will be years before they’re able to process them for trial or return to their home countries and by then the Congress will have time to redraft legislation fixing the issues the SCOTUS raised. So the goal is accomplished anyway… keeping terrorists locked up so they can’t come to your office and kill you and 2,900 co-workers… again.

Stevens, writing for the court in the 5-3 ruling, said the Bush administration lacked the authority to take the “extraordinary measure” of scheduling special military trials for inmates, in which defendants have fewer legal protections than in civilian U.S. courts.

Nothing in the ruling suggests shutting down the facility or challenges Bush’s authority to detain enemy combatants.

This Republican administration actually created a big problem for itself…what do you do with all these people after 5 years…10 years…20 years, with only a make-shift process of judicial review designed for wartime expediency? Just have a French Guyana-style “Papillon-type” penal colony ad infinitum? The questions were bound to arise stemming from pragmatic issues if not legal ones.

The Supreme Court has struck at the core of his presidency and dismissed the notion that the president alone can determine how to defend the country. In rejecting Bush’s military tribunals for terrorism suspects, the high court ruled that even a wartime commander in chief must govern within constitutional confines significantly tighter than this president has believed appropriate.

For many in Washington, the decision echoed not simply as a matter of law but as a rebuke of a governing philosophy of a leader who at repeated turns has operated on the principle that it is better to act than to ask permission. This ethos is why many supporters find Bush an inspiring leader, and why many critics in this country and abroad react so viscerally against him.

He asserted that in this new era, a president’s inherent constitutional authority was all that was needed. Lawmakers and judges largely deferred to him, with occasional exceptions, such as the Supreme Court two years ago when it limited the administration’s ability to detain suspects indefinitely.

“There is a strain of legal reasoning in this administration that believes in a time of war the other two branches have a diminished role or no role,” Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who has resisted the administration’s philosophy, said in an interview. “It’s sincere, it’s heartfelt, but after today, it’s wrong.”

Perhaps the excesses of this Republican administration will find the American People embracing anew the concepts of liberty and governmental structure with checks and balances. Perhaps the enthusiasm for appointing toadies instead of real judges will wane.

The dissenters were the ideologues most loved by the Bushies:

Clarence Thomas
Born: June 23, 1948
Party: Republican
Time served: 14 years, 8 months, 6 days
Position: associate Justice
Nominated by: Bush
Commissioned: October 16, 1991
Sworn in: October 23, 1991

Samuel Alito, Jr.
Party: Republican
Time served: 0 years, 4 months, 28 days
Position: associate Justice
Nominated by: Bush (43)
Commissioned: January 31, 2006
Sworn in: January 31, 2006

Antonin Scalia
Born: March 11, 1936
Party: Republican
Time served: 19 years, 9 months, 3 days
Position: associate Justice
Nominated by: Reagan
Commissioned: September 25, 1986
Sworn in: September 26, 1986

However, a Republican Justice did demonstrate that he can stand up and defy his master.

David H. Souter
Born: September 17, 1939
Party: Republican
Time served: 15 years, 8 months, 20 days
Position: associate Justice
Nominated by: Bush
Commissioned: October 3, 1990
Sworn in: October 9, 1990

Kudos to Justice Souter…a trully great American. There is hope for America.

But it is just a matter of time…this Republican administration is what the Republican Party has become…over time America will be reduced to a third-world style kleptocracy…it is best to remove all Republican politicians as soon as possible.

Or, in the case of Monica Lewinskey, kneeling for nothing!

Did John Kerry write that for you?

Paul summed it up best in comment #3:

Your anti-Republican close-mindedness is all too much the regular state of people who self-describe themselves as “progressives,” but, in an increasing number of ways, are the reactionaries of this century.

When you can only react to everything, you end up standing for nothing.

A righteous ruling by the Supremes, and hope that the REAL America is not dead!

Another one of GD’s theories down the toilet.

The vote was split 5-3, with moderate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy joining the court’s liberal members in ruling against the Bush administration.

Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in the redistricting case and now ruled against the administration in a very important case in the war on terror. Such a “rubber-stamping stooge”.

Sure about that? I know your emotional reaction is to blame this on the vast right wing conspiracy, but perhaps you ought to actually read the opinion. If you had, you’d see this:

JUSTICE KENNEDY concluded in Part II that because appellants have established no legally impermissible use of political classifications, they state no claim on which relief may be granted as to their contention that Texas’ statewide redistricting is an unconstitutional political gerrymander. JUSTICE SOUTER and JUSTICE GINSBURG joined Part II–D. Pp. 7–15.

“SCOTUS has indicated in the past that gerrymandering can be so egregious that it violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause. But the court has never set out a test to determine what constitutes such a violation, and it failed to do so again yesterday.“

Probably because the number of African-American and Hispanic Texas lawmakers in Congress rose from eight to nine after the district lines were redrawn.

This wasn’t about equal protection, this was about fairness in district lines - which had been drawn in favor of the Democrats who controlled all levels of Texas government for 130 years and were finally seeing a shift in voters away from the Democrat party. And despite holding a majority of statewide elected offices, Republicans were still in the minority in congressional representation because of the democrat-gerrymandering that remained. The redrawn lines were in reflection of the shift of Texas voters.

This whole case is nothing more than democrats’ reaction to losing the faith of voters in a state long held in their favor.

“The court has proved itself capable of thinking up elaborate tests when it wants to — it has made up standards virtually out of whole cloth“

And thankfully, it appears, we have a Supreme Court that can fairly interpret the Consitution instead of acting like political activists hell bent on creating law.

“Texas’ 2003 redistricting was an extreme case. DeLay, who was then the House majority leader, led a fierce and successful campaign to capture Texas’ Legislature for the Republicans. (He is facing criminal charges of using illegal corporate campaign contributions to do it.)“

Alleged criminal charges by a partisan hack, democrat district attorney. Democrats continue to manufacture issues upon issues, then refer back to one fairytale to support the next. Of course, when the Delay case is dismissed without fanfare, I’m sure you’ll express “shock” and “surprise” that it didn’t produce fruit.

“Then, even though Texas had already redistricted after the 2000 census, the Legislature took the rare step of redistricting again. The new lines were drawn in such a partisan way that Republicans ended up with nearly two-thirds of the state’s Congressional delegation.“

Nearly two-thirds of the state also voted for the Republican presidential candidate in 2004.

“That is criminal, and now the Republicans have stooges on the Supreme Court to rubber-stamp anything they want to do…that’s why the emphasis on breaking the Supremes all these years…to turn it into a group of toadies rather than a judicial branch.“

Funny, this was the same argument made in the 2000 election… before the new justices had even been nominated.